But on Oct. 8, a group of about 20 UW students were lured to the pub for another reason. They were there to get a sneak peek at a new social networking service from a Seattle startup called Ripl.

The event -- one of more than a half-dozen that Ripl has sponsored at or near the UW in recent weeks -- not only was designed to build buzz for the service, but also was a way for the seven-person startup to get feedback from a group of people who readily share portions of their lives on Web sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com.

"To get the active participation and, really, ownership of the product by the students and people associated with that community has been huge," said Bill Messing, a 46-year-old former Classmates.com and MSN manager. His goal is to use the research obtained at the UW focus groups and today's test launch to expand the service to a broader audience next year.

"The kids are a fantastic group to start with, but it is not the end," Messing said.

Ripl isn't the only Seattle startup attempting to tap the college demographic. Earlier this year, Blue Dot recruited about 50 members of a Christian organization at the UW to test its new social networking service.

Plied with pizza and soft drinks, the students provided valuable feedback. Mohit Srivastava, the 28-year-old founder of Blue Dot, said he was surprised by the honest feedback and eager participation, adding that some of the comments helped shape future versions of the service.

"It was really helpful," said Srivastava, who worked with three UW interns to organize the focus groups. "College students are oftentimes the early adopters, and you can sometimes get a sense of what the market is going to be like in a year or two by understanding the trends."

Karl Haisch, a 20-year-old junior who participated in the Blue Dot focus groups, said he learned a lot about marketing, startups and business. In fact, he was so intrigued with the process that he decided to change his major from biology to business.

"They would order pizza, and we would all just sit around and brainstorm ideas and how they could improve it," said Haisch, who continues to use the service. "It was great."

Corporate America has bombarded college students with marketing messages for a number of years, passing out offers for credit cards, newspapers or music services. But now, especially in the hot consumer Internet areas of social networking and digital media, some early-stage companies are bringing students into the mix to help with important business decisions such as product design and marketing. They are no longer just consumers.

Other startups, such as Facebook.com and Box.net, were created by college students who already have their fingers on the pulse of the demographic. But, for those companies who don't have 20-year-old founders, there is no better test bed than a university.

Ripl, for example, is attempting to tap the knowledge of UW students in numerous ways.

In addition to the product demonstrations and focus groups it held around campus, the company set up a 13-person student advisory board to test ideas and analyze potential problems. It also recruited three interns this summer who essentially became the startup's marketing department, going so far as to set up a group on campus called "Students for Social Networking."

The interns' work will culminate today as Ripl turns on the service for the first time. Only those who have a UW e-mail address will be admitted. To help spread the word, the interns have recruited 75 other students -- known as "Ripl Teamers" -- who will invite their friends to join the new social network.

The company's goal is to have about 5,000 users testing the service by the end of the year. But you won't find the Ripl executives leading the charge.

That's the job of Shade Solon and Michael Calvo, UW seniors who have worked with Ripl as interns since July.

"We have kind of an unwritten policy that the students interact with other students in terms of getting them to sign up," Calvo said. "You will never find Bill (Messing) on campus trying to convince students to sign up for Ripl."

Solon, a psychology major, understands why companies such as Ripl want to tap her knowledge. A user of MySpace and Facebook, she said college students are more comfortable with blogs and other digital media. Because of that, Solon said she gets e-mail pitches for new services a few times a day.

"It makes sense," Calvo said. "If you look at the success of some of the more prevalent and established social networks, their base started out with people in this age range. ... There is so much life on a college campus it seems like the ideal place to go to launch a social network."

Ed Lazowska, a UW computer science professor, agrees that it makes sense for social networking and other consumer-oriented services to target college students. After all, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie just brought up the topic in a talk last week in one of Lazowska's classes.

"He actually doesn't think you can build a successful social networking site unless you yourself are part of the target demographic," said Lazowska. "At the very least, you have to test it on the target demographic."

But Lazowska also worries that "testing" can go too far.

"It's a slippery slope from testing to marketing/selling," he says. "I'm happy to facilitate companies doing honest evaluation with the student demographic. I'm not at all happy to be tricked into facilitating a marketing program."

Connie Bourassa-Shaw, who heads the UW's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said companies contact her all of the time asking for ways to get the opinions of students. In many cases, she tries to match the companies with the appropriate classes or faculty members.

"It is not hard at all to find projects or people who want to come in," she said. "In fact, more than anything, you kind of want to protect the students because everyone wants them. They are a big demographic."